


don't mean to stare

by perfect_little_fool



Series: for the last time I am sure [1]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Brief Touch, Canon Compliant, F/M, Flirting, Fluff, essentially missing development between these two
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-21
Updated: 2017-06-21
Packaged: 2018-11-17 02:30:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11266080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perfect_little_fool/pseuds/perfect_little_fool
Summary: “I’ll get you to read it to me one day,” Betty tells him, throwing her legs up under the table to prop up beside his lap on his side of the booth.His body stiffens as he looks down to see her calf brushing idly up against his thigh, her ankles crossed and her expression neutral while she looks down into the half-gone remnants of her milkshake. “It’s only a matter of time.”(or the first time Jughead places his hand on her left shoulder and she knows she's screwed)





	don't mean to stare

**Author's Note:**

> THANKS CW for giving me NEW SHIT to SUFFER OVER. Anyway I'm now on the Bughead train, you're freaking welcome
> 
> I don't know about you guys but have you noticed that Jughead puts his hand on Betty's left shoulder a lot??? Like when they walk he's always on her right side and that's where their bodies end up??? I don't know if this was a choice that Cole and Lili made but I am LIVING FOR IT so I wrote a fic about the first time he touched her like that. This is set sometime between 1x04 and 1x06, it is very much canon compliant. I wanted to write a scene that probably could have happened but just wasn't included in anything. You decide where it belongs
> 
> title comes from Velvet by Fickle Friends

The straw that is slipped between Betty’s lips pops out. The pink pout morphs into a small smile as she looks across the table at Jughead, his head ducked down to type erratically into his laptop. 

“You know, they say a lot of us millennials develop hunchback because of our need to be online 24/7,” she teases, her blonde ponytail swinging. Her fingers stray to the table top to trace over the scratches from years of use. Pop’s Diner is more than old, it’s a staple in Riverdale’s history. Betty cherishes the fact that she can partially call it hers. 

Jughead’s eyes move up briefly to lock with her slanted ones. “If I were surfing through a Facebook timeline stock-full of heartwarming videos and posed pictures, I might deserve that hunchback,” he shoots back, not without kindness given the miniscule smirk flirting the edges of his mouth. “However, I’m revising my latest chapter if you must know.”

At this revelation, Betty tips forward in the booth, not hesitating to find the straw again and suck down more of her classic vanilla shake. “Can I hear some of it yet?” 

Eyes meet again before returning to his bright computer screen. “You know I don’t want anyone reading it until it’s complete.”

Her lips squish to the side of her face as she thinks. “Okay…but you won’t be finished with it until the case has been closed. Which could take months. Maybe even years. Are you telling me I have to wait forever to hear your story?”

Jughead shrugs his shoulders, reaching over his laptop to grab at one of the papers in a stack next to Betty. Sometimes when he’s deep in thought as he types she’ll draw funny doodles over random sheets in the stack and wait to see if he notices any. The only one he _has_ noted thus far is a little sketch she had done of Kevin’s profile in the corner of some newspaper article he’d printed. When he’d complimented her on the angles and shading of it she had blushed. 

“Not forever,” he returns. “Just not now.”

The pink pout replaces the small smile once more. His eyes roll even as the thumb on his right hand twitches to reach up to that bottom lip. “Come on, Juggy,” she says with that sunshine filled voice. “You know I’m a great listener.”

“I may agree, but please don’t push this, Bets.”

At this final sentence her shoulders slump, her teeth now gnawing at the straw since she couldn’t get him to budge.

“I’ll get you to read it to me one day,” she tells him, throwing her legs up under the table to prop up beside his lap. His body stiffens as he looks down to see her calf brushing idly up against his thigh, her ankles crossed and her expression neutral while she looks down in the half-gone remnants of her milkshake. “It’s only a matter of time.”

Jughead swallows down his nerves as he glances back to her, that open and kind face making him break eye contact once more. 

Chatter ends there as he returns to typing feverishly and Betty flips open her Chemistry book to get started on page forty-two of her homework. 

Sometimes Betty can’t remember what it was like when Jughead was nothing more than an acquaintance through her relationship with Archie, both of them sharing a mutual best friend in the red-headed freckle-faced loser she lived next door to. She’d gone years without seeing Juggy as anything but someone she needed to push past to get to a certain Andrews, not thinking anything of what being a friend to him could be. 

But after recent events and the shaky ground both seemed to currently be on with Archie, she couldn’t think of anyone else she’d rather have by her side. Especially when it came to the Blue and Gold.

An hour or so passes when Hermione drops by with the usual plate of fries for Jughead. His gaze hardly even twitches as he snags one of the golden crispy hashes from the mountain, mumbling a thank you as Veronica’s mom swerves off to help a couple sitting at the counter.

Betty’s brow raises. “Is that for the both of us or should I go order something for myself?”

At this he stops his pouring over the information in front of him, eyes drifting north to lock with hers once more. Sometimes the look she gives him makes his stomach knot up for no reason other than that he feels like she’s looking straight through to the wall behind. He finds himself swallowing again. 

Instead of saying anything since words were impossible in this moment for him, he pushes the plate closer to the center. He can feel more than see her grin, but he doesn’t make a reaction to it as his fingers curl into fists behind his laptop screen. _Get a grip, Jug._

More time flits by, nothing more occurring between the two of them other than when Betty’s foot happens to full-on graze his own when she moves her legs down from the booth seat to go to the bathroom. He doesn’t know whether to comment on it or not—is that something you comment on with a girl? Or at all?—but she’s already headed toward the back anyway, her pretty pale blue skirt swishing around her hips as she goes.

The peaceful evening concludes when Betty’s phone vibrates harshly against the table, her first message since they sat down after school.

Judging by her immediate frown, he guesses the sender without missing a beat. “Your mom?”

She sighs, picking up her bag and starting to slide her books away. “My mom.”

No explanation is needed as he closes his laptop. He’d rather get the pleasure to walk Betty home than to remain here, in a booth, alone. So they pack up their belongings before shuffling out of their seats, waving goodbye to Pop and Hermione on the way out the door. 

The streets of Riverdale were quiet, typical for a Tuesday evening. Ever since Jason no family is willing to risk letting their kids, no matter how old, out when they could be home, safe. Too bad Jughead doesn’t have a home to be safe in—but that’s beside the point. 

Her arm right arm brushes his left as they walk and his hairs stand on end.

Betty is looking up toward the sky, her small hands tucked away into the pockets of her jacket. “I wonder if Polly ever thinks about me,” she comments flippantly almost, blonde hair iridescent under the lamps they pass. “Do you think she does?” The question was directed at Jughead even as she kept her green eyes pointed above. 

The boy beside her stays quiet before he answers as truthfully as he can. “She has to. You’re her sister, Betty. She loves you.”

“Does she?” Betty responds now, finally turning her head to look at him. He’s once again taken aback by the immense feeling of her stare. “I haven’t tried to see her, I don’t know where she is…I wouldn’t blame her if she hated me.”

“Don’t say that,” Jughead insists. “I don’t know Polly, but I know you. And if she’s anything like you, she’s got a strong head on her shoulders.”

A smile forms on Betty’s lips then. “Thank you, Juggy.”

His arm swings up and fingers falls into place on her left shoulder, his palm tucking over the curve easily. “Of course, Betty.”

Betty finds herself wanting to stop, her body giving a start at his hand on her shoulder, but she wills it all away and keeps walking. The warmth of his palm seeps into her skin, her back breaking out into goosebumps. Seconds pass and he still doesn’t move it. She’s overly aware now of the touch, her heart racing each moment that goes by.

Jughead himself wasn’t sure where that came from, why his fingers were curled over her shoulder to rest just above her collarbone as they walked, why he felt the need to do as much from their conversation about her sister. But, once again, he doesn’t know how to comment on this and just keeps it to himself. Luckily she hasn’t pushed him off quiet yet, so he breathes in an easy breath. They’re only a street over from her house, maybe she’s gonna wait to slap him across the mouth then for touching her. 

As they come upon her door she turns to him, this movement finally breaking the spell they had fallen under from his hand anchoring them together. His fingers slide down her back and around the dip of her waist as she turns to face him, her tongue going dry at all the new places he was suddenly touching. 

She wasn’t sure what _his_ reaction was to all of this, but she knew _she_ liked it. A lot.

“Thank you for walking me home,” Betty murmurs, wishing she could say all that she had suddenly felt in the last minutes of their walk. 

Jughead swallows, hating the words that wouldn’t come out. “Of course. Any time.”

The night air felt thick as a cricket far away chirps, a light inside of Betty’s house clicking on just then. 

A pause. Then she moves in for a hug, his body finding another new place to touch her when his arms slide in around her back to return the embrace. Her head tucks under his neck. They hold that for no more than a full second before they’re breaking apart, her face feeling hot and his fingertips buzzing to return to the side of her neck. 

“Goodnight, Juggy.”

“Goodnight, Betty.”

Her front door closing meant he could breathe again.

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think! Could possibly expand this into more fics and more universe, but we'll see. xx


End file.
